I recently posted on what I perceived to be an intersting phenomenon: Democrats were not nearly as unified behind their man as the Republicans were. I wondered why cracks were not appearing in the monolithic GOP facade. Evidently I spoke too soon — some Republicans are going to vote against their man after all. If Kilgore Trout and Stuart Benjamin over at the Volokh Conspiracy are representative samples, the incumbent is in for a long night in early November.

The meat of Kilgore’s argument:

Here are four reasons I believe the Iraq War has weakened America’s fight
against terrorism:

The minimum $200 billion we will spend on this war could have been better
spent on improving homeland security and thwarting terrorist plots through
intelligence and law enforcement actions.
This war has overextended our
military and left us ill-equipped to respond to legitimate terrorist
threats.
This war has infuriated the Muslim world, making it fertile ground
for terrorist recruiters.
This war has taught terrorist organizations that
the U.S. can be goaded into fighting the wrong war and wasting resources that
could have been used to destroy them.

Some Bush supporters have criticized Kerry’s plans for
Iraq, and with good reason (why does Kerry think that other nations, who didn’t
want ny part of the war when it began, would want to risk blood and treasure
now?) But are Bush’s plans for Iraq any better? Not that I can tell — I
examined his website and could find no
definite strategy for dealing with the problems in Iraq, or even a hint of
recognition that problems exist in Iraq. And here’s the clincher for me: Bush
got us into this mess, so he gets the blame. I’m not going to blame Kerry for
not having a good solution for Iraq, because nobody has a good solution for
Iraq. There might not be a good solution for Iraq. People aren’t calling it a
“quagmire” because it’s a good Scrabble word.**

I want to keep writing. I want to describe in withering detail every reason
I have to vote against George W. Bush. I want to write about the Federal
Marriage Amendment and how it symbolizes Bush’s eagerness to mangle the law of
the land to suit his narrow, bigoted religious views. I want to write about
Bush’s bungling of the economy and about the jobs he’s lost. I want to write
about the ballooning deficits Bush has created through profligate spending and
irresponsible tax cuts. I want to write about the arrogance of the Bush
Administration, about its refusal to admit when it’s moving in the wrong
direction, about its willingness to use 9/11 to hack away at civil liberties,
about its cronyism, about its cynicism, about its intolerance for criticism,
about its willful twisting of facts and logic, about its endless grasping for
more and greater power.

The meat of Mr. Benjamin’s argument:

First, on the issue of this President’s policies, many commentators have
ably pointed out the myriad ways in which this President has been a disaster
for
those who believe in limited government… tax cuts without spending
cuts (or,
as it turns out, with massive
spending increases) aren’t small government - they’re big government
combined with borrowing…

…”Fine,” some libertarian friends
have said to me, “I admit that Bush has
been bad for limited government, but
won’t electing Kerry be worse for our
interests?” As for the short- and
medium-term, the great likelihood is that the
answer is no. Unless something
truly disastrous happens to the Republican party
(e.g., finding out that
Osama Bin Laden received money from the RNC), it is
going to retain control
of the House of Representatives… This means that a
President Kerry is
going to be dealing with a hostile Congress - and Tom Delay
is not going to
roll over. In other words, we are likely to get the same sort of
gridlock
that we had from 1995 to 2000, with no significant new spending and no
significant new tax cuts - greater fiscal sanity and a smaller government.
Again, this is not just pie in the sky. Niskanen also showed that divided
government is associated with lower government
spending…

…But what about the long-term interests of those
who want a limited
government? Here we come to the most important point that
many have overlooked:
if limited-government types vote for Bush and he is
reelected, then the obvious
conclusion for any savvy political strategist is
that Republicans can take these
voters for granted and thus ignore their
interests… The only way to send a
message to future Republican candidates
is for Bush to lose in part because of
the defection of limited-government
types. And, if we don’t send that message, I
fear that we will be in the
political wilderness for a long time.

The bottom line, in my view, is
that people who believe in the old
Republican credo of limited government
had better vote for John Kerry.

I remember asking the Maximum Leader in 2000: “So, you’re a Republican. Who are you going to vote for since there isn’t a Republican in the race?”